The Society of Automotive Engineers (SAE) International's standard J3016 defines various degrees of automated driving: no automation, driver assistance, partial automation, conditional automation, high automation, and full automation. For the purposes of this specification, all of these (except for no automation) are referred to herein as “automated driving”. For the purposes of this specification, the expression “automated driving system” includes advanced driver-assistance systems and autonomous driving systems or other such self-driving systems that provide at least some degree of assistance of autonomy in the driving of a vehicle.
Automated driving systems utilize sensors to capture sensor data characterizing the surrounding environment of the vehicle. Automated driving systems typically include one or more processors onboard the vehicle to process the sensor data and to provide control signals to the steering, braking and/or acceleration subsystems of the vehicle. Sensors on the vehicle may include RADAR, LIDAR, and cameras. Ultrasonic sensors may also be used for short-range guidance, e.g. parking.
Combining real-time sensor data from multiple sensors for computationally efficient control of the vehicle is extremely challenging. Improvements in this technology are thus highly desirable.
It will be noted that throughout the appended drawings like features are identified by like reference numerals.